Retired Seventh District Regional Organizing Coordinator Timothy D. Bowden died Oct. 12.

Brother Bowden was a celebrated organizer in some of the most union-hostile corners of the United States, a job he did with fire, honor and an unflagging belief in the labor movement.

"Dignity, respect and fairness. That has to be the heart of every organizing campaign," Bowden said when he retired four years ago. "If it's just about money, the company will throw them a few bucks and they'll just tell you, 'See you later.' They have to go home and say: 'I believe in this. This is mine.'"

Brother Bowden was raised in the Phoenix Local 387 union hall, where his dad, Clyde, was business manager for more than 30 years and chairman of the International Executive Council for 14 years. Dee, his uncle, retired from Phoenix Local 640. Bowden was initiated into Local 387 in 1981 after three years in the Navy, when he took a job at Arizona Public Service.

He worked with the tools for 13 years, taking positions on the executive board, the negotiating committee, the state electrical association and the central labor council before joining the local staff, first as a business representative in 1994 and then assistant business manager two years later.

Within months, then-International President J.J. Barry appointed him, Fernando Huerta and Tom Davis as international representatives, the organizing brain trust he needed to transform the IBEW.

"It was a country club back then," said Huerta, who worked with Bowden for the next three decades and became one of his closest friends. "Barry saw our membership shrinking and knew we weren't doing what Henry Miller wanted us to: organize the unorganized. Tim was relentless — work hard, play hard."

Bowden said he even worked while his body rested.

"You sleep with the tablet because you dream about leaflets," he said.

Seventh District International Vice President Steven Speer said Bowden was a mentor.

"I've had four apprenticeships — to be a journeyman, a business manager, an international representative and vice president," he said. "I was finding my feet and Tim reached out to help. Sure, because it was his job, but it's how he did it, how he thought about it. There are people who really stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you because it's who they are. That was Tim. That's what we mean when we say brother."

Bowden retired in 2018, after 38 years. He was done with leaving on Monday and getting home on Friday, spending more time in hotel beds than his own, he said.

"I want to do more than take my Harley down and put air in the tires," he said.

He retired to a cattle ranch in Bedias, Texas, outside Houston, and built a nail and hair salon at the house that his wife, Kymie, ran. Huerta said he had been kicking around plans to open a Mexican restaurant that would serve the foods he remembered eating as a kid growing up in a Chicano neighborhood in Phoenix.

Always the organizer at heart, Bowden helped the salon become a community hub of sorts, Huerta said.

"This is a huge loss," Craig Parkman, who worked for Brother Bowden for more than a decade and took over as regional organizing coordinator when Bowden retired. "He would talk to anybody and remembered everybody. He would remember campaigns from decades ago and was generous sharing those stories."

Speer said the sadness at the loss is hard to overstate.

"There is heartache and disappointment that someone who worked so hard and was so valued didn't get the length of retirement we all feel he earned. There is a feeling of loss for the resource, too, and for the support that just won't be there," he said. "Not everyone touched as many lives as Tim did for the good, and he didn't get enough time to have it repaid. If someone lives to be a ripe old age and they harvest a fair share of what they sowed, you might still be sad, but it's not like this."

The officers, staff and members of the IBEW extend our deepest condolences to Brother Bowden's wife; his children, Jacob, Sarah, Krysti, Alan, Megan and Clayton; and six grandchildren.

Retired 11th District International Representative Daniel D. "Danny" Melloway died on Sept. 26. He was 84.

"Always willing to help anyone that needed it, Danny never met a stranger because everyone that met him instantly knew that there was no one else like him," Melloway's family wrote in his obituary.

Melloway was born in 1938 in Columbia, Mo., and grew up in Huntsdale, a small town west of Columbia. he went to an elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse. In his spare time back then, he worked on his grandfather's 240-acre farm and tended his mother's garden, two activities the self-described "farm boy" enjoyed well into adulthood.

His interests expanded into electrical systems when he would tinker with his car while he was a student at what was then Columbia High School, now Hickman High School.

While still a high school senior, Melloway started working with a local electrician and found that he really liked the work.

After graduation, Melloway was accepted into an IBEW apprenticeship, and he was initiated as a member of Jefferson City Local 257, which has jurisdiction in Columbia.

"He worked his way up the ranks" in the local, his son David said, serving on various committees including health and welfare, vacation, labor-management, holiday, and JATC.

In 1970, after serving for two years as Local 257's president, Melloway was elected business manager during a slow period for the local, a time "when many members were having trouble finding work," his family wrote.

One of Melloway's major successes during his 15-year career as business manager was negotiating a contract that covered Local 257's electrical work on the construction of the Callaway nuclear power plant.

Melloway "was passionate about organizing unrepresented electricians," they wrote. "His perseverance was respected by members and employers alike."

"He was a pro-union guy all the way down the line," David Melloway said. "We always bought union-made [at home], looking for the union label. He was serious about that."

Under the elder Melloway's stewardship, his family wrote, "Local 257 emerged from financial hardship to provide years of employment for hundreds of IBEW members." He also shored up the local's retirement plan, they wrote.

Melloway also served as president of the Jefferson City/Columbia Building Trades Council, as well as a five-year term on the IBEW-NECA Council on Industrial Relations, which settles disputes between labor and management that have reached an impasse by issuing a binding and unanimous decision.

Retired Local 257 Business Manager Don Bruemmer had worked with Melloway since 1978. "He brought me into the local," Bruemmer said, noting that the two men's fathers had been friends.

"Danny was also a good guy to go to a casino with," Bruemmer said. "We had a lot of fun together."

In 1985, when Melloway was appointed by then-International President Charles Pillard to serve the 11th District as an international representative under then-International Vice President Ray Edwards, "he left his local with a sizable financial surplus," his family wrote.

Although Melloway was based out of the Eleventh District's office in Springfield and traveled frequently to cover the district's jurisdiction in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, "he was always apart of our lives," David said.

After Bruemmer became business manager of Local 257 in 1992, Melloway still made time for the local. "If I ever had a question, I could confer with Danny," he said. "He was just a good guy. When he gave you his word, you didn't have to think about it."

Melloway retired from the IBEW in 2002, but he continued to be involved with the union even then. He also spent much of the next two decades with his wife of 63 years, Delores, sleeping and fishing on their boat on the Lake of the Ozarks and going to NASCAR races, as well as woodworking, dancing, hunting and traveling. He was a Mason and a Shriner, as well.

"He made a very comfortable life for his family," said David, now a commercial real estate attorney. "He allowed me to live life to the fullest. He pretty much let me go where I wanted to for college" — including Boston University for law school.

At a crowded event there, David recalled, "we were shoulder-to-shoulder," and as far as David knew, his father had never traveled t0 Boston.

"Then, from across the room, someone recognized him and yelled, 'Danny Melloway!'" David said. "That shows you what a huge impact he had."

"He was a larger-than-life character," David said. "He would do anything for anybody."

Please join the entire IBEW membership in honoring the memory of Melloway, who served the Brotherhood with loyalty and dedication.